Ever Have One Of Those Days?

I am.

Let us hope it is not Groundhog Day.

You Can Be Anything You Want

These are true words.  

But how many of us make it?

I only know what I want now, and I think I am a little past the chance of gaining it.

If you know what you need, chase it.  If you have to risk to do it, take the risk.  You will always regret the moment that you did not take the chance.  Failure is fleeting, never having tried is a regret you will never shake.

The World Sucks

If you have not picked up in the past posts I am a solid atheist.  Thus it always comes as a surprise to me that when something happens to make me think the world sucks that I feel it should be fairer.

Being an atheist to me is the realization that there is no god(s) or greater purpose.  But it is also the belief that there is no such thing as good and evil.  There are no great forces in the world, there is just perception.  And that is why I get surprised that I always react with a that is not fair attitude to these things.

The thing that makes me happy is to know that I have such a capacity for caring for others.  I don't do it because some religion tells me to, I do it because I genuinely care about these people that bad stuff happens to.  

Just know, that if I had the money, I would be on a plane right now.  If you are scratching your head and wondering WTF is that idiot talking about? go to my major blog and all will be clearer.

Mark

The Other Blog...

I am getting a little disheartened recently with my main blog at www.thepathfinderchronicles.com.  Reason why is I am pouring everything I can into keeping it improving and nothing seems to be working.  I realise that I have some problems with the blog, if they can be called problems, and I am not sure what I can do about them.

The list of problems;

1. Name of the blog is a bit misleading as it is not just Pathfinder that I deal with, I have a broad focus
2. The posts that I think would be very popular (like my encounter series) are just not attracting any interest
3. Organisation of the blog needs to be cleaned up but to do that I will lose a massive amount of metrics.
4. There is nowhere near enough conversation coming in from readers

I really want my blog to be a go to resource.  I read a blog from another site talking about numbers and they were talking about posts reaching 2000 views in a month.  I get NOWHERE near that amount of views.  In fact my highest viewed post has just around 2000 views now and it has been out for around a year and a half to two years.

I just want the blog to show continuous improvement BUT it has really gone absolutely nowhere with numbers etc. since the start of the year.  In all honesty I was working far less hard on it at the end of the year last year as I am now and there seems to be no reward for the work.

Anyone out in internet land able to give me a few ideas to try?

My Way of Handling "Situations"

When conflict comes into my life I have a very reserved way of handling things and I am not sure that it is the best way of handling things.  If I am confronted by a situation that revolves around my ideals and another's beliefs then how do I handle it.

I am a person that wants 100% facts about circumstances.  If I am going to take something or someone to task for their actions I want an argument that is infallible and irrefutable.  If I can not have that type of argument then I do not have the argument.

For example, if someone says to me "Did you see what x wrote about you on the internet?" I ask what exactly did they write?  When they tell me and the writing does not have my name in the text at all and there is no other hard evidence that it was about me then I let it go.  All the circumstantial evidence may point a finger directly at the writing being about me but it does not offer the 100% proof and so I would let this situation go.

It would bother me.  I will dwell on this issue and it will annoy me but the offending party may well get away with this behaviour because I will not approach or reply in any way shape or form to the alleged insult.  It is not so much that I do not like conflict, I just like to be right.

If I approached the said person about the comments and they stated "Wasn't about you." Then where am I at.  I have no resolution and no recourse.  Sure, I could argue about it but as long as they kept saying "I never mentioned you and it was not about you" then the argument gets old and inert.  then I look like an ass for even bringing it up.

I do realise that I am probably in the minority in this regard.  I say that because people I know spend a lot of time accusing me for stuff that I have said or done with little to no proof whatsoever.  I do not say that to make myself appear like a complete nasty toad but it is true.  Most of the people around me tend to shoot their mouth off first without thinking about the situation.  These people probably like me as I am honest all the time unless;

• I am contractually obligated to say nothing such as privacy agreements and the like
• If someone has told me something in confidence then I keep it that way.

So what about it internet land?  Am I a dinosaur?  Should I just open my mouth and accuse without the 100% truth on my side?  What percentage of truth is OK to hit people up with?  There are people telling me I am encouraging such bad behaviour because I do not take the alleged offending parties to task about it.  Should I change my ways?

An Exercise in Futility

Apparently, as I have just applied for my own job (well half of my own job anyway) I am so inept that I do not even rate for short listing for an interview.

Perhaps it is time to leave the stress behind and no longer teach.  Change is as good as a holiday right?

When Life Hands You Lemons...

I find it a little funny the way that life has of teaching me lessons.  In realtiy I am a very easy person to get on with.  I tend not to get angry at other people when they mess up or do something that impinges on me and I find that the only time I get upset is when I let myself down.

On Tuesday I had an early morning meeting secret squirrel style meeting with a woman who handles the strategic direction of the educational material that I am involved in.  She talked to me about essentially a dream trip that the organisation wanted to send me and 5 others on depending on if we could get funding from a fellowship that focuses on providing educators the ability to research and expand their view.

The organisation I work for had identified me as a potential future leader that would use the trip to push technology to the forefront of not only my own classes but help it become synonymous with other fields as well.  They were right in thinking that this interests me because I have already attempted to do some material in this way so it was an honour to be thought of in this manner.

The trip looked much like this;

Week 1

·         Fly to Los Angeles.

·         Visit STEM schools in the southern California region

Week 2

·         Join the ACCE tour to Silicon Valley and San Francisco visiting key high tech industries/corporations (e.g. Google, Facebook, Apple, Oracle etc)

·      Week 3

·         Travel to New York

·         Attend and/ or present at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in Philadelphia PA, one of the largest education conferences in the USA: 

Weeks 4 to 6

·      Attend between 1 to 3 weeks of personal professional development (your choice). Part of the study must be university based or receive university credit. Relevant institutions/programs include:
o   Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) including Fab Lab visit: 
o    Museum of Science (MOS), Boston:
o   Smithsonian Institute, Washington: 
o   Exploratorium, San Francisco:
o   Project Lead the Way (PLTW):
select from summer school programs around the country;
o   NASA Field Centers:
o   Meet with Massachusetts officials e.g. governor’s STEM advisory council, Department of Education etc.

So from my perspective this was/is the opportunity of a lifetime.  I mean MIT!  MIT! Wow!  Not to mention all of the other stuff.  This was an exciting opportunity.

But by the end of the day the person had to ring me and tell me that I was not eligible as she was not aware that I was not yet permanent in the organisation (I work from contract until I can finish my study).  I told her that it was fine, and I meant it.  I know that this sort of stuff can happen and I was OK with it.  In fact, I was more than fine.  I was happy that I had been recognised as one of the first choice offers because of my work!  She apologised many times and I find this sort of thing funny.

I am sure that there are people out there that get very upset if they were in the same circumstance but that is just not me.  It was something that was just not clear to me until now that I may be different in this regard.  I realised that in fact the only time that I get upset is when I have a chance to do something that matters and I back down because I become doubtful of my own ability.  I have been doing that for around ten years now and I can see this clearly now.  I am capable in all sorts of ways, all I need to do is try.

Let the small stuff slide.  Sometimes stuff happens that is beyond anyone's ken.  Don't blame them for it and move on.  That is the view from my window today.